24 Hours of Le Mans, DGSport Herock has faith
A studied and calm atmosphere Thursday evening in the DGSport Herock box at the Le Mans track. This first day of qualifications was used to fine tune the settings of the Yamaha #9.
The 20th place clocked during the first qualification session did not quite reflect the work that was realised in a day’s work. « Olivier Depoorter had a minor crash while passing a slower rider, Olivier Aerts, team Manager of DGSport explains. There was quite some traffic on track which made that Josep didn’t clock his best lap time, but Arturo Tizon proved that we’re doing good, he clocked a lap in 1’40.931. »
That was also confirmed during the night sessions. Further adjusting the settings resulted in a 14th place in the scratch ranking and a 6th in the Superstock category. « Tomorrow we’ll be working with race tyres to validate our settings and to develop a machine in which the riders have confidence » Olivier Aerts continues.
« We could also continue working on the bike in order to have a better feeling in front, Olivier Depoorter adds. That would give us more confidence and it would be easier to ride a 24 hour race. But it’s very motivating to team up with riders such as Josep Monge and Arturo Tizon. They are fast and they are used to working with Michelin tyres. »
Such a homogenous team of riders should allow the Yamaha DGSport Herock to keep up the pace during the race just behind the leaders, ready to profit from any mistake they might make.
The second qualifying session will take place on Friday from 11 h till 13 h 30.
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